in the first line, the words: - Any person or contractor or subcontractor, or any agent or person acting on behalf of any contractor or sub-contractor, or, - so as to read as follows: — Section 4. Any person or contractor or sub-contractor, or any agent or person acting on behalf of any contractor or sub-contractor, or any agent or official of the Commonwealth or of any county, city or town who violates any provision of this act shall be subject to a penalty of fifty dollars for each offence. [Approved April 3, 1907.

[CHAPTER 316.]

An Act relative to the Board of Gas and Electric Light Commissioners. Be it enacted, etc., as follows:

SECTION 1. Section one of chapter one hundred and twenty-one of the Revised Laws is hereby amended by striking out the words "and shall not engage in any other business", in the twelfth and thirteenth lines, so as to read as follows: Section 1. There shall be a board of gas and electric light commissioners consisting of three persons, citizens of this Commonwealth, one of whom shall annually before the first day of July be appointed by the governor, with the advice and consent of the council, for a term of three years from said day. The commissioners shall be sworn to the faithful performance of their official duties. They shall not be in the employ of or own any stock in any gas or electric light company or be in any way, directly or indirectly, pecuniarily interested in the manufacture or sale of gas or electric light or of any article or commodity used by gas or electric light companies or used for any purpose connected with the manufacture or sale of gas or electric light. The governor shall designate the chairman of the board and may, with the advice and consent of the council, remove any member for cause after notice and hearing. The chairman of the board shall receive from the Commonwealth an annual salary of four thousand dollars and each of the other two members an annual salary of three thousand five hundred dollars. The board shall be provided with an office in the state house or in some other suitable place in the city of Boston in which their records shall be kept.

SECTION 2. This act shall take effect upon its passage. [Approved April 18, 1907.

[CHAPTER 325.]

An Act relative to Wires and Electrical Appliances in the City of Brockton.

Be it enacted, etc., as follows:

SECTION 1. The city council of the city of Brockton may by ordinance designate some officer or officers of the city who shall have exclusive authority to cause to be removed from the streets of the city hereinafter prescribed all telephone, telegraph and electric light, motor and power wires, cables and conductors, in or above the said streets, and all poles and other structures in said streets used for the support of the same, except such structures, poles, wires, cables and conductors as are hereinafter excepted. It shall be the duty of the officer or officers, and he or they shall have authority, to grant all necessary permissions for such wires, cables and conductors, to be placed, maintained and operated in underground conduits, in accordance with the requirements of the ordinances of the city; and it shall be the duty of the superintendent of streets or other officer having charge of the highways in the city, and he or they shall have authority to issue all permits for the opening and occupying of streets which may be necessary to carry out the intent of this act, upon the application of the officer or officers first above mentioned or of any person or corporation interested.

SECTION 2. The provisions of this act shall apply to those parts of the following named streets which are within a half mile circle from the city hall, namely: - Main street, North Main street, Montello street, North Montello street, Court street, Franklin street, Ward street, Centre street, Church street, School street, Lincoln street, East Elm street, Crescent street, Belmont street, West Elm street, High street, Green street, Pleasant street, City Hall square, Warren avenue, North Warren avenue, Commercial street, East Railroad avenue and West Railroad avenue, and also to that part of Main street between Calmar street and Keith avenue and that part of North Main street between Broad street and Wilmington street. The first work done pursuant to this act shall be in Main street between Court street and Belmont street, Montello street between Court street and East Elm street, and Centre street between Main street and Montello street; and the work in those parts of said streets shall be completed within three years after the designation made by the officer or officers provided for in section one, provided the necessary permissions and permits therefor shall have been given seasonably. After the expiration of the three years aforesaid no company owning and operating wires in said city shall be obliged to do work hereunder involving the expenditure of more than twenty thousand dollars in any one year; and any expenditure by any such company in excess of that sum in any year after the expiration of said three years shall be reckoned as a part of its expenditure hereunder in the next succeeding year or years.

SECTION 3. The said officer or officers, within thirty days after appointment, and in any January thereafter until the work first to be done in said streets is completed, may prescribe, giving public notice thereof in at least one daily newspaper in said city, by advertising therein twice a week for two weeks in succession, those parts of Main street, Montello street and Centre street in which the work is to be done first and completed within three years; and in January of each succeeding year after the completion of the work first to be done under this act may prescribe not more than two miles of the other streets or parts of streets, herein specified. And in the streets or parts of streets so designated all of said wires, cables and conductors, except such as are hereinafter excepted, shall, as regards those parts of Main street, Montello street and Centre street in which the work is to be done first, be removed or placed underground during the three calendar years next following the designation thereof; and thereafter, as regards any other streets prescribed under the provisions hereof in any year, and subject to the limitations of this act as to the annual cost hereunder to parties affected hereby, shall be removed or placed underground during such calendar year; and said officer or officers shall cause the owners or users of such wires, cables or conductors to remove them or to put them underground, and also to remove any poles or structures used in the streets to support such wires, cables or conductors, except when, in the judgment of said officer or officers, it is impracticable or inexpedient to remove such wires, cables, poles, conductors or structures; it being the purpose and intent of this act ultimately to cause the removal from the parts of the public streets, avenues and highways designated in the preceding section, of all of said wires, cables and conductors, except such as are hereinafter excepted.

SECTION 4. The provisions of this act shall not affect the grant by the mayor and aldermen of said city to The Edison Electric Illuminating Company of Brockton of the right to lay and maintain underground conduits, wires, cables and conductors in certain of the streets of said city, adopted as amended December twelve, nineteen hundred and six, and approved December fourteen, nineteen hundred and six, which grant is hereby ratified and confirmed.

But so far as the provisions of this act are not inconsistent with the terms of said grant, said company shall be subject hereto. And any expenditure by said company pursuant to the terms of said grant shall be deemed and taken to be an expenditure under the terms of this act; and any expenditure by said company for underground construction or equipment, except the original expenditure in the parts of streets in which the first work hereunder is to be done and completed within three years, shall be reckoned, at the rate of twenty thousand dollars a year, as a part of its expenditure hereunder in the next succeeding year or years after the expiration of said three years; the purpose and intent of this provision being that the company shall not be required or obliged to do any work hereunder, except that specified in the grant aforesaid, until after the expiration of the number of years, after the three years aforesaid, determined by dividing its total expenditures for underground construction and equipment, other than the original expenditure aforesaid, by twenty thousand.

SECTION 5. The Edison Electric Illuminating Company of Brockton and the Old Colony Street Railway Company are hereby authorized to contract, for themselves and their successors and assigns, for the use by said railway company of such of the conduits, ducts, cables and conductors of said Edison company as said railway company may desire to use, upon such terms and conditions as may be agreed upon by said companies; and in case of the purchase of the plant and property of said Edison company by the city of Brockton, such conduits, ducts, cables and conductors shall be a part of the plant and property so purchased.

SECTION 6. After a part of said streets has been prescribed as aforesaid no person, firm or corporation shall place any poles or other structures for the support of any wires, cables or conductors, except those herein specially excepted, in any street or part of street so prescribed, except temporarily, with the consent of said officer or officers, in an emergency; and if after the expiration of that calendar year there shall remain in any such street any poles, structures, wires, cables or conductors which said officer or officers shall have ordered to be removed, the said officer or officers shall cause the same to be removed; and the city may collect from the owners or users, by an action at law, any expense involved in such removal. But such officer or officers may extend the time for such removal in case of any person, firm or corporation, upon satisfactory evidence of the inability for good and sufficient reasons of such person, firm or corporation to comply with the order for such removal within the time prescribed.

SECTION 7. The officer or officers who may be designated by the city council of said city pursuant to section one of this act may at any time, upon application of any person, firm or corporation duly authorized by law to lay or to erect and maintain and maintaining wires in the streets of said city, grant permission for the removal of any wires, cables, conductors, poles or structures in any of the streets of said city, whether within or without the district specified in section two hereof, and for the placing of the same and any other necessary wires, cables and conductors or any extensions thereof underground as herein provided; and it shall be the duty of the superintendent of streets or other officer having charge of the highways in said city, and he shall have authority, after the granting of such permission, to issue all permits for opening and occupying the streets of said city which may be necessary to carry out the intent of this act, upon the application of said officer or officers or of any person or corporation interested; and he or they may grant locations for such additional poles for local distribution only from underground wires, cables or conductors as may become reasonably necessary by reason of work done under the provisions of any section of this act.

SECTION 8. This act shall not apply to long distance telephone wires, or to posts for the support of lamps exclusively, or to poles used exclusively for local distribution from underground wires, cables or conductors, or to street railway trolley wires or poles; nor shall it affect or revoke any rights already granted to any person, firm or corporation to place or maintain any conduits, pipes, wires, çables or conductors underground; but any such conduits, pipes, wires, cables or conductors laid hereafter in pursuance of any such grant shall be laid subject to the provisions of this act so far as they are not inconsistent with the terms of such grant. For the purpose of this act no wire shall be deemed to be a long distance telephone wire which does not extend at least twenty-five miles from some central office.

SECTION 9. When any person, firm or corporation operating or intending to operate wires, cables, conductors or conduits in said section of said city shall desire or be required to place the same underground in any street or highway in said section, and shall have been duly authorized so to do, it shall be obligatory upon such person, firm or corporation to file with the city engineer of the city a map or maps made to scale showing the streets or highways which are desired or required to be used for said purposes, and giving the location, dimensions and course of the underground conduit or conductor desired or required to be constructed, which map or